University of Zurich

In recent years, research showed that many professionals consider their work to be socially useless. Various explanations have been proposed for the phenomenon. The much-discussed “bullshit jobs theory” by the American anthropologist…

Each year, more than five million people worldwide die as a result of bacteria that are resistant to most common antibiotics. New antibiotics are urgently needed to ensure that bacterial infections in patients can still be treated…

South America was the last continent to be settled by humans. The first migrants moved in rapidly from North to South America in the Late Pleistocene, around 15,000 years ago, as testified by early traces of human presence in what today…

The health of humans is inextricably linked to that of animals and the environment. The growing global population means humans are more and more encroaching on animals’ habitats, which increases the risk of pathogens jumping from animals…

Are our senses there to provide us with the most complete representation of the world, or do they serve our survival? For a long time, the former was the dominant view in neuroscience. “Was” is the operative word here. In the last 50…

Climate change is expected to cause widespread decline in wildlife populations worldwide. But little was previously known about the combined effects of climate change and human activity on the survival rates not only of giraffes, but of…

One million species are currently under threat of extinction. This loss of biodiversity is a huge global challenge. Ecologists study how animal and plant worlds react to anthropic and climatic influences – and how we humans can protect…

Proteins are the central building material of our bodies. As a fundamental component of the cell as well as of DNA and its genes, they make us who we are. Scientists who study the complex interactions of proteins often use…

Subsoils are the largest storehouses for carbon, as well as one of the most important sources of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Global warming is accelerating the decomposition of soil humus. It is also affecting the waxy and woody…

Every four years, the Swiss federal government publishes its Roadmap for Research Infrastructures. The infrastructures assessed in the report include large-scale research facilities such as particle accelerators as well as databases and…